You can't reach the Network Connection because of access problems.
You can't reach the Network Connection because of access problems.
Hey everyone, I have two Beelink GT1 Ultimates running CoreElec with KODI for my media players at home. They started back in 2019 and have been running forever. Every year, I take the SD cards out, format them, put the CoreElec image back on, set everything up quickly, and let them run. But this time, something is wrong.
We have a cascading network setup with Cat6 ethernet cables everywhere, nothing except cell phones uses WiFi. I will attach a quick sketch to show how it looks. Basically, my TV works fine. Media scrapes are good. I use HTPC1 and PC1, so they connect to the router next to our NAS (a WD MyCloud EX2 Ultra). The family TV is right next to where the modem and main router are coming in via fiber optics. Everything worked perfectly until last week when I reinstalled everything.
I could connect to the NAS and share a folder on PC2, so they can both access that video folder easily. We've been doing this for years. When I try to connect now, half of my scraping is a mess, and suddenly it's not connected to the NAS. But when I reboot from PC1, everything works again. I reset the password on the NAS, and for a day, it was working fine.
I changed a lot on the NAS, cleaned up file names, and that helped scraping work better before. We had a great setup with lots of stuff named correctly or etc... but sometimes it scrapes wrong items, so I made some changes. Anyway, I formatted the SD card again and set things up from my HTPC1 player using the family name and password. Just like last time, I could access the NAS/PC1 folders and start scraping, and everything looked okay for a while.
It seems like it's not an account problem on the NAS at all. Even though CoreElec hasn't updated in years and we've run this off a PC before without issues, something is changing over time. The connection to PC2's share folder feels intermittent, but I could still play videos fine when the NAS connection was broken or had no access at all. Speed? Well, it might be speed since HTPC2 connects through two routers while PC2 only needs one, but that doesn't seem to be the issue because the scraping was okay with just one router path before.
My router is an older TPLink TL-WR1043ND that works fine. I don't know about the brand of the internet company's main router, but it cascades down through a second router (the Beelink) to get to the NAS. Since everything was working for years without any problems and this setup is all ethernet with fiber optic in, maybe there is an account issue?
I am really stumped here. Do you have any suggestions for someone not very skilled in networking?
It feels more like a weird software problem than a real internet issue. Let's assume the second router isn't actually doing routing, but acting as a switch instead. Having two routers in one network causes all kinds of headaches. I'd try sending simple ping commands to check if the file problems are just from the network part and not related to file sharing. The only thing on the network side that could cause this is if you have duplicate IP addresses. I would use the ARP -a command to see if the MAC address changes for any given IP.
half of my scraping is a mess. access works fine, I start scraping and an hour later get even bigger problems than before. Per above: this sounds like some strange app issue rather than a network problem. [Ref @bill001g , Post #2.] What, where, how am I scraping? Which software/apps do you use? Have you done any recent updates? Have you tried using another known working SD card? Maybe the card is corrupted in some way or has problems later as it fills up. KODI Library Cleaning: https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=367883 Any logs available?
@Ralston18 Another known SD card? No... not an SD card problem because the same card in my system works just fine as I said before. When scraping, like I mentioned, I'm using KODI so I use the default scraper that worked on my system, and until recently it also worked for the family system all these years. Though software is irrelevant now because when I try to access the drive with problems, even if it was scraped or not. I was just talking about scraping to show how I have access to the NAS but at random times it drops, whereas having issues connecting in the first place is different. Seems like it connects fine until finally failing out. @bill001g Cascading network setup has worked fine for 5 years. Ran a PC-based system as media centers for about a decade, about 5yrs ago we got the fiber optic cable and the modem/router switched to the front of the house from the back, so had to set up the cascading network. ARP-a command... that unix? Sadly the CoreElec is just enough OS to make KODI work, there are no command prompts or OS to run anything else from. I don't think Kodi lets you setup a static IP either, else I could pick one not in use. I think... no idea. I usually stumble my way through networking and write notes so if I have to do it again I can look at them next time. 😀 I think where I'm stuck is that it worked for years and nothing changed. Same hardware, same location, NAS wasn't changed, OS version hasn't changed in over a year, and works on my system just fine. I made sure to buy the exact same Beelink make/model to keep this setup stuff easier. Plus the fact that one mapped connection works and the other doesn't means it's not a full connection loss either. ???
Nothing has changed right now, but things have actually changed by design or default settings. There were updates, maybe they should have happened before, and disk space is getting used up too. Overall, the setup might hit a limit that's causing trouble.
Beeline adapters: This model? You can find it here: https://www.newegg.com/p/1J8-0068-00044
Add these adapters to your diagram and draw lines showing power and all connections between devices. It's okay to write down each device with its IP address, whether it's DHCP or Static. Check the power sources (the outlets first) that feed every network device. There might be some issues with intermittent power loss from outlets or circuits. Are you using any power strips, surge protectors, extension cords, etc.?
For "arp -a", that command works in the Command Prompt on Windows, and also in PowerShell. I'll let @bill001g share more details if needed.
Well, actually, CoreElec hasn't fixed things for s912 Android boxes since last year. I just used an old image file from my PC: CoreELEC-Amlogic.arm-9.2.8-Generic.img. Because the system isn't updated, KODI won't either. The only change is maybe a scraper, but that doesn't matter because I wiped everything clean again and added all the connections before things started breaking. It didn't even get close to scraping. Space on the drive isn't an issue too... it should crash my HTPC1 just like this one does. Yes, the Beelink is exactly what I have. It's older now, but I can watch a 20GB 4K 10-bit movie at 20mb/s with no stutter or lag, so I'm not upgrading for the sake of new stuff. Can't play it faster than it plays right now. 😀 Back in the morning around 6am, I started thinking about wires and plugs... I checked the ethernet port on the back of the Beelink but nothing else, so I'll give that a try tonight when my family is sleeping and I can get work done. 😀 ran "arp -a"... I can see the IP address for the HTPC2 and it doesn't conflict with any other ones; it's set to dynamic.
So after 12 hours, my HTPC1 box is working fine with family accounts. It's not a problem with the NAS account. When I put the SD card into HTPC2 and turned it on, the connection to PC2 was okay but the NAS didn't get access. I remember finding a setting once that required searching for... "Wait for network before starting Kodi." The default time is 10 seconds. I turned that on and set it to 10 seconds, then rebooted and everything connected. But when I added the NAS, it would connect right away only after I walked away. So now HTPC2 is still running and will check for the card later. Everything from the wall down to HTPC2 was unplugged and plugged back in again.
Windows has changed unless you have stopped getting all updates. Then again, if you did stop getting updates, then other apps expecting those updates might not work as well. Sometimes problems seem related to scraping websites like KODI from their official place. But if the connections break on their own without affecting the scraper, there is something else wrong. This specific scraper comes from a special list for installing tools on KODI. There are lots of tips in the help section: https://kodi.wiki/view/Troubleshooting However, I saw that you fixed file naming problems so it seems you followed those tips - right? And I noticed there is a Debug Log - any information can be found here? = = = = HTPC2 is being used for scraping, correct? In any case, I would also check the logs on the computers to see error codes, warnings, or even simple messages about the problems. For example, look in Reliability History and Event Viewer for events right before, at the start of, during, or after the scraping happens. Another thing you can do is open Task Manager, Resource Monitor, or Process Explorer to watch what each computer does while working. Use all three tools but only check one at a time. It takes a long time but maybe you will find something unexpected happening. Also update your drawing with device and IP addresses. The command "arp -a" should show more devices than just the internet address for HTPC2. On HTPC2 run "ipconfig /all" and post the results here so we can see them all together. Router 1 is from the ISP, right? Look closely at the router to find its make and model number or check your ISP's website - that info might be listed there too. Is the modem also from the ISP? What are its make and model? And what about Router 2 (TL-WR1043ND)? That device should have its DHCP function turned off unless you changed it yourself. Use the router's admin name and password to open a browser and find a list of connected devices there. It might be a problem with the scraper app but that issue could come from network conflicts or other problems. I think we need to see the whole picture now.
Windows? What does it matter? A NAS isn't Windows, CoreElec isn't Windows, and Kodi isn't Windows either. Trying to run ipconfig on my HTPC2 doesn't work because there is no command window or an OS at all. Basically, just a bare minimum of Unix/Linux software (whatever that means) is enough to make Kodi run. I can't figure out how to get commands to work yet. Scraping files isn't working; it stopped after the first two tries and I never got past scraping on the third one. Modem/Router 1 are both from my ISP. Router 2 is a TPLink. I could update the diagram later, but I think you're misunderstanding how this setup works most of the time and missing some details I mentioned in old posts. The Beelinks are basically just running Kodi. I can't open a console to check anything or test it out. That said, I have an old laptop that I can plug into the router with another cable, or I can unplug the HTPC2 from the port/cable and use the same connection to see if those things cause the problem.
HTPC1 and HTPC2 are Beelinks, right? And each Beelink uses an Ethernet cable to connect to its own router - right? There is no admin interface for either device on the default IP address or a configured one. What are their specific IPs? They should be visible through your main router (the one giving out addresses). The Beelink itself? I found this link: https://www.newegg.com/p/1J8-0068-00044 According to the specs, the Beelink can be wired or wireless. But how do you actually choose that setting? It uses Autodetect: if you plug in an Ethernet cable, it becomes wired; otherwise it becomes wireless. You said only your cell phones use wireless, so the Beelinks must be wired. How do they get an IP address from their router using DHCP? Private networks need specific IPs for everything like routers and subnets. You can also set a Static IP if you want that, but then you have to manually access the device to change it. I rebooted the Beelinks, which likely was a factory reset, bringing them back to default settings with their own specific IPs. You also rebooted your routers; did you do that too? I found an old link suggesting 192.168.1.5:5555 is the default IP and port for Beelinks like this one: https://forum.bee-link.com/forum.php?mod...ad&tid=559 If a device gets a DHCP address, other devices need to share that same address so they know where to send files. For example, if you want to send data from your NAS to the Beeline, how does the NAS know which one it is sending to? If the IP changes like with DHCP, the sender might try to send the file to the wrong device instead of the right one. KODI shouldn't care about the hardware setup as long as it runs on its host and sends files successfully. If scraping fails for you, maybe KODI is trying to send data to a specific IP (like "X") but that address doesn't exist or there are two devices with the same name. KODI might not know how to handle those errors. With a modem and two routers, network issues are even more likely. You need a clear picture of your whole setup and the settings for all your devices.